Bulldog's Blog

For as much time as I have spent this off-season dreaming of a true number one center for the Sabres top line, the folks who run the team have set out with what appears to be a different blueprint in mind. They've loaded up in front of their goaltender. A four year deal with a cap hit of $2.75 million a season for Andrej Sekera is the latest example. With Sekera in the fold, Buffalo now have seven defensemen signed taking up around $18 million in cap space. That number will get a slight bump when Marc-Andre Gragnani signs. This will not set the Sabres apart dramatically as a look at the salary cap situations of the rest of the teams in the league shows.

Almost half the teams in the league spend at least $18 million on defensemen. The number is 14, assuming the Kings get Drew Doughty signed and his cap hit is north of $2.5 million, which of course it will be. Philadelphia leads the way with $23 million on the cap allocated to defensemen for the upcoming season. The Flyers also have made an investment in goal by adding Ilya Bryzgalov, who coupled with back-up Segei Bobrovsky gives the Flyers a whopping $7.4 million cap hit in goal. Add it up and we're talking $30 million on defense and in goal. That far and away is the most any team in the league is spending in their own end.

That is close to where the Sabres will be the season after next. Tyler Myers will be due for a new contract and a hefty raise. Even if you set his cap figure at $6 million, which I would sign up for in a second, his new salary will push the Sabres up over $21 million spent on defensemen. This includes the subtraction of Shaone Morrisonn's $2 million cap hit. Couple that $21 million dollars spent on d-men with Miller's $6.25 plus the back-up's salary and you are going to be at around $28 million spent on goalies and defensemen. That is more than anyone else in the league is spending this year, with the exception of the Flyers. Of course, the development of a kid could make a pricier veteran like Jordan Leopold expendable before we reach this projection in 2012-2013.

The conclusion I would draw from all of this is that the Sabres feel the best way for them to improve as a team is to be better defensively and if they can accomplish that, the offense will come. They were 9th in the league in goals scored last season with a sinkhole at center ice for most of the season. I would still like very much for the Sabres to find a way to make a deal and improve even more down the middle. I'm just thinking more and more that the big moves have been made and this is your team for 2011-2012.

I am so sorry for the delay here with my latest entry on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I watched five minutes of the latest episode Monday when I got back from vacation. Five minutes was all I could stand.

For 167 1/2 hours a week I love my life. My wife, my kids, my job. This half an hour a week makes me wish I was dead.

Scott wants to marry Kourtney. Kourtney wants to have another baby and is ignoring Kmom/Kmanager pleading with her to get married while they shop for shrubs.

Scott goes to see a therapist to talk about his feelings. What he really should do is offer an explanation for wearing his button down shirt open to nearly his belly button. Scott sucks.

Lamar thinks he could do porn. Congrats on that buddy.

Khloe says this is what happens when you marry someone you have known only a month.

I hate these people.

Kmom/Kmanager is going to become a Minister so she can marry Pastor Brad. I should say preside over the service where Pastor Brad will marry someone else. He's not marrying Kmom/Kmanager. She's already married to a surgically shredded Bruce Jenner.

There was a time in my life when I drank. A lot. Nearly all of the time I feel glad that I don't do that anymore. Right now is not one of those times.

Seriously. Watching this show could convince you that we as a people have peaked and it is all downhill from here. If thousands of years from now we are back to living in caves and hunting with spears, blame this show. Or global warming. Whatever.

Back at the tire fire, Bruce Jenner is feeding an ailing Khloe chicken soup and talking about how Kmom/Kmanager will get liquored up before she performs the ceremony where Pastor Brad gets married.

Next we have Kmom/Kmanager talking to some lady who is identified as Lisa, Kris' friend. Who the hell is Kris? How many of these people are there? Is there another daughter I have yet to meet? I really have been paying attention. This is my job after all. I know Kim is in a relationship with NBA player Kris Humphries but he's in New Jersey and it doesn't make much sense to me that some middle aged lady in Los Angeles talking to Kmom/Kmanager would be tied to him. Wow. I can't wait to find out, can you?

Dramas over. Kmom/Kmanager is named Kris. I think. Sorry. I'm not very good at this. Maybe because I wish my head was inside my oven right now.

Now there is a big argument involving too many of these jokers to list. Okay, I really could list them, but my kids are going to be waking up soon and I really want to be done with this by then. The argument is about Kourtney and Scott not getting married. There is a lot of bleeping, so it's pretty heated. The parts that aren't bleeped sounds like angry/injured birds stuck inside of my head.

Maybe some Jameson in my coffee wouldn't be the worst thing ever.

Kim and Kourtney are having a really deep and meaningful conversation about marriage and their parents divorce and it really is touching. I mean they are really digging deep here folks. Soul baring stuff. The scene actually lasts for almost a minute, which is a really long time for this show to go without some lame soundtrack music, scene shifting crap.

This episode ends with Kmom/Kmanager again talking with Kourtney about why she wants her and Scott to be married. She only wants the best for her girls.

Which of course why their lives are being filmed, edited, and then presented on E while some Maroon 5 wanna be band plays underneath it all.

This show just doesn't waste any time getting right to it. I mean I have barely settled in before I am hit with Kim and one of the sisters, Khloe? Kameron? Kolorado?, working out in skin tight outfits talking about their, well, unmentionables. Wow. So hot and the timer on my DVR only says we're only 1 minute in.

If a meteor could hit my house right now and not harm my wife and kids I think I would take that.

Big drama this week as Kmom/Kmanager is thinking of changing her last name back to Kardashian from Jenner. I just found out this week that her first name is Kris. Of course it is. Kris, Kim, Khloe, Kourtney and the 15-yr-old, Kelly? Kalico? Kalifornia? Whatever. All 'K' names. Thus Mom/Manager has become Kmom/Kmanager.

Kim just said, "I mean people ask me all the time if my butt is real". I know what she means. We did an appearance last year at Riverfront Auto Sales and people kept stopping by to ask me if my butt was real and it just got, like, so old, you know? Now Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney are searching 'Kim butt implants' on the internet. They decide that the best course of action to put an end to all of this butt speculation is for Kim to have an X-Ray of her butt done.

Back to the last name drama. Kmom/Kmanager, Kim, and the 15 yr old, Karen? Kallista? Konstantanople? are talking about their last name and Kmom/Kmanager is making the point that the name is their brand and that is more important than her husband, Olympic Decathlon Champion Bruce Jenner's feelings about their last name. Kim calls Kmom/Kmanager a sell out and Kmom/Kmanager says this..."A sell out? It's like, it's like a brand, it's like the Kennedys. Everybody knows the Kennedys."

Is my debt paid off yet? Can I go volunteer somewhere or pick up trash on the side of the road? How about if I get in a kayak and clean up Scajaquada Creek with my bare hands? Or with my teeth.

It seems the sisters have convinced Kim to get an X-Ray to once and for all prove the authenticity of her butt. There you go America. You demanded a resolution to this controversy and now you'll have one. These girls should get to work on the NFL lockout and the Buffalo Schools. Then we'd see some real action.

Olympic Decathlon Champion Bruce Jenner walks into Kmom/Kmanager's office and asks what she's doing. The answer should be something about how she's sitting in there with a camera crew waiting for him to come in and pitch a fit about her changing her last name back to Kardashian like they talked about him doing before they decided to have the camera crew set up in there. Anyways, he's mad and hurt. You can see it written all over his weather-beaten, leathery looking, surgically altered face.

Time is standing still or perhaps even going backwards as the timer on my DVR says we are only 13-minutes into this septic tank of a show. I've never wanted a power outage more.

X-Ray time. OMG! LOL! Is there one of these for 'Kill me quick'? KMQ? One of these idiot sisters says the fact that Kim is getting a butt X-Ray is iconic.

If anyone knows of a foolproof way to have football games fixed so I can avoid losing this bet again next year please reach out to me.

This is why it is great to have sports ownership that will spend every dime they can. This week is awesome. And long. It really started last Thursday when word of the Sabres potentially having a deal to land Robyn Regehr first surfaced.

Now, not only am I looking forward to Friday and the opening of NHL Free Agency, I am energized by the possibility that the Sabres might do something big to their roster an hour from now. Or tomorrow. That is what the philosophical shift in the way that the Sabres do business has done for the fans.

It has energized them. I am buzzing and I think fans are right to be. It has been so long since we have had the chance to enjoy this part of the hockey off-season. Rather, it had become something to be dreaded. Settling for the fallback of the fallback guy. Not being in on guys who it seemed would fill a need for the team. It was frustrating and ultimately left many feeling defeated, which is a weird thing to be feeling about your hockey team when it's 90 degrees outside.

Now someone, somewhere is waiting to remind me of the pitfalls of overpaying guys on July 1st and mistakes that can haunt a team for years to come. I know. That is part of the reason I am hoping that the Sabres make their big move before Friday comes when they run the risk of being among too many teams chasing the only fish worth catching, Brad Richards.

Well here we are, week 2 of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and already I am looking for a new angle. For my first time out last week I Presented what amounted to a blow by blow of the season 6 premier of the worst thing I have ever watched on television. I decided to change my approach a little bit for week 2.

I watched the episode Monday night rather than spending the time doing something nice, like reading with one of my kids. I am writing this Tuesday morning rather than going to my son Owen's picinic day at school. He'll understand, Daddy has a job to do. So here are my thoughts having had 12 hours or so let this week's episode sink in.

I hate Mike Schopp and Greg Bauch for choosing to make me watch this insipid, nuclear waste dump of a show. I hate myself for not being better at picking football games. I hate that my satellite dish hasn't fallen off of my roof. I hate that people like this putrid nonsense. I hate that I feel some remorse about any of this.

Look, I know, one man's garbage is another man's treasure. Sometimes when I write or talk about many of the things that pass as being culturally relevant today I probably come off like I think I'm so smart and you must be so dumb if you like this crap. Like I'm sitting around reading Camus, listening to Jazz records you've never heard of, and watching PBS. Sure. More likely, I'm reading a motorcycle magazine, listening to a Rancid song about a drug deal gone bad and watching Drag Racing. High art it ain't.

But alas, you are not being asked to review Rancid records or watch Drag Racing, and I have a job to do and a debt to pay.

The nuts and bolts of this week's show played out in two storylines. One involves another daughter that I am seeing for the first time. Kameron? Kallista? Kendall? Yeah, Kendall I think is right. Has to be a K name. Kendall is 15 and a model. Kim takes her to NYC so she can show her the ropes and push her into being a runway model and see her basketball playing boyfriend, Kris Humphries. Kendall ends up hating the idea of being a runway model and melting down and embarrassing Kim in front of what I guess is the Bill Walsh of runway model coaches or something.

This show blows.

The other story line this week centers on Mother/Manager having a key to Kourtney and Scott's house. This is so stupid I can hardly even stand to be typing right now. The drama begins when Mother/Manager lets herself into their house one day while Scott is home. He gets upset and tells Kourtney she needs to take the key away. Not that Mother/Manager should call first, or ring the doorbell. Just take the key away. My parents have a key to my house. So do my wife's parents. And my brother in law. You know why? Because sometimes we need for them to get in our house when we're not there. You know what they don't do? Use the key when we are there. Who does that? Why would someone do that? I think I know why. To create fake drama on a show that should be placed in a time capsule to mark the continued deterioration of our culture.

"And in 2011, people cared about a family of people whose names all began with the letter K. They were famous for acting like they were famous, hanging out with other people who were famous for acting like they were famous, and dating athletes. One of them had sex on videotape, I think." The end.

Mother/Manager ends up giving the key back but tells the viewers the kids will regret it. Nice. Kim tells Kendall she's sorry for pushing her so hard and I think there is some crying. Or maybe that's me crying. Forgive me, it's hard to tell because this show is so real.

Next week, Bruce Jenner has an orgy!

I'm so sorry. I made that up. A dried up catcher's mitt can't have an orgy.